Alignment - Neutral is NEUTRAL

[GodBeastX]

Your alignment should correspond to your character, not vice versa. Alignment should, at best, be a closest match, and that's it. I don't think you should ever look at your alignment and then go 'I need to change my character, I'm not exactly following it'. If the alignment doesn't match up perfectly, don't worry about it. Just get the closest fit and then never think of it again. I still can't decide whether Josephine is best as Neutral or Chaotic on the law scale and Evil, Neutral, or Good on the moral scale (hence why I picked chaotic neutral, because that also indicates a lack of moral conviction... can't decide if you're evil or good? Then that means you're neutral morally.).

And yep, you should let your alignment be fluid. If a DM hits you with a new alignment or an alignment shift, then take it. Again, RP the character out, fuck the alignment. The alignment should match the character, and if the character acts a certain way that causes the alignment to change, then let it. Better than trying to stick to the alignment and ignore the way the character should act.

Agree whole heartedly. Notice I said:

Alright, I think people are STILL confused about what Neutral means, so I need to beat it into people's heads again. So if you see me shifting your alignment and go "WHYYY?!", then this might help clarify.

People hate alignment shifts because they think it's punishment But people SHOULD be shifting. There shouldn't be a person that exists that isn't shifting throughout their life. How about that T/N farmer who just wants to feed his family? What was he like before he had a family? And I'm of the opinion Babies start T/N

[FreakyFerret]

And I'm of the opinion Babies start T/N

Actually I think babies (and kids) start CE. They're all about themselves and will happily harm another creature just to amuse themselves. And they obviously practice some soft of necromancy cause they suck the soul from their parents. It's only through social conditioning they are changed to something else.

[wangxiuming]

So when those banites sacrifice babies, they're actually doing good?! *alignment shift positive* Ding!

[zkeleton]

James Bond, Odysseus, and Sanjuro from Yojimbo are Lawful Neutral. Three exemplars of Lawful Neutral exist. These are the Formians, the Inevitables and the Modrons.

Sanjuro? I don't know about that one...

Anyway, for those of you that have read the discworld books, to me the Patrician of Ahnk-Morpork is the ultimate LN character. Why try to stamp out the theives and assassins guild when you can just license and regulate them?

[Infernal_Havok]

One thing about shifting alignments and playing alignments and not your character.

I am all for it personally, however, We forget this is DND and there are certain IG requirements for classes, abilities, items, spells, etc... that are alignment based. All of those factors influence the decision for players to play alignments and not their characters IMO. Class being the most most most important... How many Paladins will fall to evil and just become a fighter? Or Assassins who have become retired and become just a rogue? How many times will DMs have to change classes of said players who fluctuate to far from their alignments to play their character? Most of the time remakes of characters are frowned upon, but deleveling is possible but messy.

I think this is part of the reason that players, who play their character's alignment to the extremes, complain when they are shifted either way on the axis. They fear that all of their progress with their character: item wise, spell wise, domain wise (cleric), abilities, and classwise would be screwed up due to any MAJOR change in their alignment.

**Please remember I stated MAJOR change meaning a large shift or accumulated shifts to the opposite axis on their alignment, which would change their original alignment completely. I'm not speaking about minor points that can always be redeemable.

[lordmaple]

Agree whole heartedly. Notice I said:



People hate alignment shifts because they think it's punishment But people SHOULD be shifting. There shouldn't be a person that exists that isn't shifting throughout their life. How about that T/N farmer who just wants to feed his family? What was he like before he had a family? And I'm of the opinion Babies start T/N

They probably treat it that way because there is a lot of equipment on Sundren that is alignment restrictive.

With that being said, you shouldn't cry too much over that. Changing your alignment can be a gift, sometimes- treating your character as a static "I do X in X situation and Y in Y situation" is probably the exact opposite of what role playing is really about- its about acting out a character, not just a person with a vocabulary set, a set grammar structure, and a certain accent.

People develop over time. You could become more intelligent, more wise, more giving, more reclusive. Your once country-boy drawl with lilting pace could mature into a clear metropolitan cadence. You could lose faith in one god, and gain faith in a god you never expected- this happens all the time in FR...its actually part of the way FR works- its a constant war between the gods to attract the most followers. No followers, dead god. I mean, I just found out last night that Kaladris used to worship Talos. Does he look like a worshipper of Talos now? No, but he retains the crazy. *wink*

Things like this give your character depth. Deul is CN, pretty much because he has been displaced from the clan he knew (he was more LN before his "accident"), and is slowly questioning everything he has ever learned from his upbringing, except for his vocation, which he enjoys

Going from Neutral to Good, or from Good to Neutral, or from Evil to Neutral, gives your character some perspective on the greater schema of things. You also begin to have a history, which is great stuff when your interacting with others. "I was once like you are..." can have weight behind it.

I liked the comment that JF made once about "Evil not necessarily being an extreme". Evil doesn't mean you are impaling puppies and kittens every time you see one. It just means you pretty much only look out for number one.

Here is an excerpt from a Wiki (ok, its from Inyuyasha, shh):

"Sesshomaru believes that struggle is the only way for survival, and throughout most of the series, he shows his contempt for InuYasha, his half brother."

Thats evil, but not "evil I'm about to kill everyone in sight". Evil could be *pretty much any* philosophy that doesn't fall close to a Judeo-Christian-Muslim ethos. I'm serious.

Say your character believes in each individual meeting their deigned fate uninterrupted. (Path of Paradox, V:TM) That person would let people die of illness, or even from murder, but would "stop" someone from stopping someone committing a murder- or even stop the murder itself, if they believed it wasn't "designed to be". The decision is of course made by the character, and that is pretty much what makes them evil. Sociopathic behavior is evil; if you set your own moral guidelines, thats pretty evil. I'm not talking about "I do what I think is right", im talking about *dramatic changes* to what you would call being "human" or retaining "humanity".

Anyway...I'll stop. I could go on and on about alignment. But just remember the best way to RP is to try to be an actor-roll with the punches, improvise, and never let your role restrain you.

[Infernal_Havok]

They probably treat it that way because there is a lot of equipment on Sundren that is alignment restrictive.

In my last post I singled this out already, however, this is only one reason. The Single Factor that remains is the Alignment restrictions that are classed base which does not allow a character to shift alignments drastically.

For instance:

Black guard (Obvious... Evil)
Paladin (Obvious... Good)
Clerics (dependent on the domain you chose during creation)
Assassins (Evil only)

These are only a few class restrictions at creation that would pretty much require the player to completely remake the character if their alignments get shifted in a "DRAMATIC" fashion.

It is a double edged sword, players want to play characters, but don't want to get frowned on when they go to far off the path. This means that in order to play their "modified alignment" correctly have will have to ask a DM to relevel them or recreate them because of their IC actions opposing their original alignment. Remakes and releveling is very very rare priviledge and it is daunting task for the staff to answer all of those requests because people want to play their character without any rules.

[GodBeastX]

Clerics are a class that won't lose their cleric levels, paladins (Depending on who) will face the same situation. You get your powers taken away and have to attone, or choose not to be what you are anymore.

If you can't handle the shift, don't shift yourself. I'm not shifting you. You're shifting yourself. I just tell everyone else about it with a number value.

[dashminus]

*** Tries hard to word this so's not to provoke the GodBeast ***

Since my last alignment shift, I have since started to re-think my PCs chosen alignment and how I perceived it should be played, and compared it to how this server thinks it should be played, to try and play more closely to Sundren's version.

Giving that our characters perform thousands of actions a "day", and as it has been mentioned, our alignments are "considered" to be always changing. By happenstance, a DM witnesses a 5-minute RP and shifts alignment a few points. But 30 minutes later, an action is performed that puts you right back in line with your planned alignment, but because no DM was present, your alignment doesn't change. Technically speaking, if a player has bad timing, a player could shift alignment in one direction for the simple fact that he is only being seen performing certain actions while a DM is active. If a PC isn't watched all the time , and shifted each time they make an alignment-altering choice, then what is the point of the occassional move?

I have always viewed the concept of alignment to be a very over-all way to gauge a persons moral and ethical beliefs. Sure it may shift from one action to the next, but at the end of the day, everything evens back out to the chosen alignment. The tedium of shifting people back and forth all day, everyday is eliminated. This obviously works best for the middle of the road alignments, but common sense should play a part.
Afterall, a LG person won't go out and kill a child, then come back to town and save five children to atone for it. But a slightly religious TN guy might go out and mug a merchant, then toss some coin into his local church's donation box.

(cowers in the corner, waiting for the smack-down)

[Mighty_Draco]

I play a neutral character, and I honestly don't mind where you shift his alignment. He picks pockets when he's in town and wants to stir up some trouble, and he enjoys fighting things with a few buds. He also has an utter loathing for all things Thayan. So far, he seems mostly neutral to me, but I guess he pushes CN. He doesn't have any alignment based classes and he can use UMD for items so I don't think changing his alignment will influence much.

[FunkGuru]

Will alignment be changed for intended deeds or only for actual deeds? Is 'speaking good/evil' actually good/evil (like in the OC) or is it just social interaction?

For example if I say, "I'm going to kill!", but never actually attack or anything?

Now the other way, if I say, "I will pray for you and/or have you rasied!", but I just go and blow my stash on ales in the Four Lanterns?

To my mind the second is actually more evil, although by OC standards I did good by 'speaking good' in the second example.

Shane tries hard to live up to both examples.

[GodBeastX]

It can be Evil, it can not be evil. There's really no catch all rule for it otherwise we could put out a catch all rule for every situation. You need an alignment referee I don't tend to shift law/chaos unless people are going out of their way hardcore to promote either end, because law/chaos are too subjective. You could be breaking every law in a city and be the most lawful person in the city

[Machiavelli]

Hmmm, I usually go for neutral alignments when good and evil just don't fit; though I've never been bothered by getting it shifted (I always kinda liked that ).

Malaclypse was CN, but I mostly picked that because good and evil would both have been poor choices for him; though he was definitely chaotic. He had all sorts of fairly strong moral beliefs; some of them were probably goodish, others evilish, most just plain weird. He actually wanted to be good, but suffered from the problems that; 1) He really didn't have much of an idea what 'good' actually meant, or how to go about doing it. 2) He didn't trust anyone else to tell him what being good might be, and 3) He was incapable of resisting various strong urges to cause trouble, play pranks, deliberately confuse people, and generally spread mayhem and disorder for no particular reason.

I reckon his alignment got shifted in all possible directions, but for a CN character that almost seems like a confirmation that it's probably the right alignment . I always viewed CN as a kind of unstable alignment anyways (ie; likely to become something else eventually). If it had ended up at CG or CE, I would have been thrilled... think of all the fun of a total alignment change

I can't see why people are worried about alignment shifts. Take it as a comment on what your character was up to, use it as the basis for some further RP, take pleasure in the change 'cos being static gets tired after a while!

[Infernal_Havok]

Hmmm, I usually go for neutral alignments when good and evil just don't fit; though I've never been bothered by getting it shifted (I always kinda liked that ).

Malaclypse was CN, but I mostly picked that because good and evil would both have been poor choices for him; though he was definitely chaotic. He had all sorts of fairly strong moral beliefs; some of them were probably goodish, others evilish, most just plain weird. He actually wanted to be good, but suffered from the problems that; 1) He really didn't have much of an idea what 'good' actually meant, or how to go about doing it. 2) He didn't trust anyone else to tell him what being good might be, and 3) He was incapable of resisting various strong urges to cause trouble, play pranks, deliberately confuse people, and generally spread mayhem and disorder for no particular reason.

I reckon his alignment got shifted in all possible directions, but for a CN character that almost seems like a confirmation that it's probably the right alignment . I always viewed CN as a kind of unstable alignment anyways (ie; likely to become something else eventually). If it had ended up at CG or CE, I would have been thrilled... think of all the fun of a total alignment change

I can't see why people are worried about alignment shifts. Take it as a comment on what your character was up to, use it as the basis for some further RP, take pleasure in the change 'cos being static gets tired after a while!

I didn't know Mal made soap at night :P